Fairhope, Alabama Mayor Tim Kant: Says he'll take an active role in all city personnel issues.

FAIRHOPE, Alabama -- In no unclear terms, the mayor told the City Council on Monday what he had already told employees and department heads last week: that from now on he will take an active role in every single municipal personnel issue from hiring and firing to any disciplinary action.

With help from attorney David Whetstone, Mayor Tim Kant informed the City Council that he will make the immediate procedural change in order to comply with a recent state Supreme Court ruling. Some council members objected, saying that the mayor should wait for the council to make policy changes after getting advice from the Alabama League of Municipalities and the city attorney.

"I appreciate the pickle this puts the mayor in, but I believe what he is doing is not a procedural change but making a policy change that is the council’s to make," Councilman Rick Kingrea said.

"I’m going to have to disagree," Kant replied. "I have to be able to terminate employees myself because I can be sued personally. I can’t delegate anymore."

Council members are immune if an employee or former employee sues the city, but the mayor can be sued personally, he said.

In a June 30 memorandum to city managers and supervisors, Kant wrote that he was altering the city’s employee manual. While the handbook states that any change in personnel rules must be adopted by both the mayor and the City Council, Kant’s memo claimed the mayor was making the change unilaterally.

Kant wrote that "any proposed demotions, suspensions without pay, or dismissals must be approved by the mayor prior to meeting with the employee or sending the documentation to the human resources department."

May hires attorney to interpret Alabama court decision

Whetstone, who the mayor hired to represent him Monday, told the council that the May high-court ruling seems to say that, in the state of Alabama, mayors alone have the power to hire, fire, and discipline municipal employees — in fact, those duties can’t even be delegated to department heads anymore. That will mean rewriting personnel handbooks all over Alabama, he said.

"Fairhope is not alone. Every city in the state with the mayor-council form of government has been turned upside-down," Whetstone said during a public forum prior to Monday’s 6 p.m. council meeting.

"The council has time to deliberate and change its ordinances when it sees fit," said Whetstone, a former Baldwin County district attorney. "The problem the mayor has is that he’s under the Supreme Court ruling today. He has to follow it as he interprets it now."

In May, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Fairfield Mayor Kenneth Coachman, who had sued five members of the Fairfield City Council in June 2009 after they voted in favor of an ordinance that would have stripped him of appointing authority.

Fairfield council members had argued that city code gave the authority to the council.

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Dan King ruled in 2009 that, according to state law, the authority rested with the mayor. King threatened to jail council members for contempt of court after they voted to eliminate two city positions.

The Supreme Court ruling upheld King’s decision.

Most importantly, the ruling states that a city council cannot create new authorities for itself that are not already granted by state law.

"The source of a city council’s authority is the authority that the Alabama Legislature granted it by statute," the opinion reads. State law only explicitly gives a council the power to appoint a city clerk, tax assessor, tax collector, police chief and fire chief, according to the opinion.

Mixon asked Monday how city supervisors would implement the mayor’s order. What if a boss needed to suspend an employee for two days, he asked.

"If he wants to do that, he has to pick up the phone and call me first," Kant said.

All of Monday’s discussion about changing personnel procedures in light of the Supreme Court ruling took place during a public participation meeting that began at 5 p.m.

The council meeting itself began at 6 p.m. and lasted only 20 minutes. During that meeting, the council approved awarding a $13,400 contract with Hutchinson, Moore and Rauch LLC for engineering services to design a new storage building and breezeway for Theatre 98. The council voted to take $100,000 out of the city’s $7.6 million bond issue from 2007 to pay for renovations to the theater. The renovations have been promised since 2007.

The council did not vote on a proposed ordinance that would regulate the use of burglar and fire alarms in the city, requiring residents and businesses to register their systems and setting out fines for false alarms from $50 to $200. The ordinance was on Monday’s agenda as a first read and no one moved for immediate consideration, so the council will now consider it during the panel’s July 25 meeting.